TIGHTEN UP

TIGHTEN UP

by

Vine Aletti

So Glad We Made It! Here's How.

A list again; another year-end clearance. Not really a Ten Best List because that sounds more authoritative and hard-nosed definitive than I care to be. These are, in junior high terms, just records I liked a lot in 1973, listed in no particular order because that didn't seem important this year. Following the first ten, an overflow second ten and a few singles as obsessive footnotes. Very thorough this year.

Innervisions (Stevie Wonder) Wonder's most accomplished and ambitious work to date. Pardon me while I throw around the word "genius." Teach, Stevie.

Fresh (Sly and the Family Stone) God knows what Sly is getting at these days, but he's shaken off some of the heaviness of There's a Riot Goin" On and danced a few steps back from the abyss. In concert, he still seems to be preparing for the final leap, but here he's surprisingly frisky.

Eddie Kendricks. Even more solid than last year's People. .. Hold On, this is Kendricks at his sweetest. "Keep On Truckin" " may be one of the year's best dance cuts, but it's the love .songs here that got me hooked, in the best old Motown tradition.

Get It Together (The Jackson 5) And this is some of the best new Motown: the J5 sing selections from the Norman Whitfield songbook and come out sounding better than the Temptations have in a long time, or at least a lot more energetic. Their best since ABC and discotheque heaven. Hum along and dance.

Head to the Sky (Earth, Wind & Fire) The big breakthrough group of 1973: an odd, dramatically effective mix of high energy and stage theatrics with a spiritually soothing, fluid sound. There are African influences here, but even more than Osibisa, Cymande or Manu DiBango's group, Earth, Wind & Fire seems to be taking black music and black audiences off in a whole new direction. Watch them.'

Deliver the Word (War) War's direction is parallel to that of Earth, Wind & Fire but a little more high-powered. On an immediate, get-up-and-dance level, they're one of the most exciting groups around and even on record the music steams and crackles.

Spinners (The Spinners) Rockin" Roll Baby (The Stylistics) I'm Coming Home (Johnny Mathis) Three records produced, conducted, arranged and largely written by Thom Bell, all of them brilliantly crafted, with the work by the Spinners standing out. But the Stylistics album is equally attractive, if not as carefully worked and Johnny Mathis sounds great to me for the first time. Sweet soul music, intelligent and sophisticated in the best sense.

Ship Ahoy. (The O'Jays) More of the Philadelphia Sound, from Gamble & Huff this time. More ambitious than Bell, this team goes in for ten-minute epics about slave ships and lectures on air pollution. The ecology cut dies but "Ship Ahoy" is stunning as is much of the other material here. And the O'Jays are not just plug-in studio men — they work-

Armed and Extremely Dangerous (The First Choice) The Philadelphia Sound part three: girl group division. Of all the girl group albums released this year, the first Choice record comes closest to the classic Martha and the Vandellas sound while capturing the best of the new discotheque mood. Includes the knockout title single, "Smarty Pants;" "Newsy Neighbors" and excellent production work by Stan Watson and Norman Harris, two names to watch for from now on. Whether these girls exist outside the studio is another question.

Gimme Something Real (Ashford & Simpson) High-gloss soul from the team that gave you Marvin & Tammi. A little thin in spots, but the feeling's there, which is more than you can say for the Diana & Marvin high-level merger.

And then there was: Under the Influence of. . . Love Unlimited, Barry White's plastic but perfect girl group; Manu DiBango's Soul Makossa whose title cut was the summer of 1973; Smokey, Mr. Robinson's first solo album ; Gladys Knight & the Pips" Neither One of Us; A1 Green's Call Me and Aretha's Hey Now Hey, both terribly uneven but brilliant, just glowing, on the best cuts; much the same can be said, about Labelle's Pressure Cookin", only the fluctuations are less erratic; Don't Burn Me by Paul Kelly, generally overlooked but excellent sweet funk; Dr. John's In the Right Place and The Pointer Sisters even if they have turned a little too cute lately.

But it just wouldn't have been the same without: "I'll Always Love My Mama" by the Intruders, Willie Hutch's "Brother's Gonna Work It Out," "Misdemeanor" by Foster Sylvers, Aretha's "Angel," GloriaGaynor's "Honeybee," Gladys Knight's "I've Got to Use My Imagination," "Dirty Old Man" by the Three Degrees, "The Love I Lost" by Harold Melvin & the Bluenotes, The JB's "Doin" It to Death," Ultra High Frequency's "We're On The Right Track," Tavares" "Check It Out" and Stories" "Brother Louie." Whew.